


The Element of Surprise

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:22:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: The best surprises always sneak up from behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Element of Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> smallfandomfest prompt: Matt comes home with a …surprise
> 
> Okay so John does most of the actual surprising in this. But since I know the prompter pretty well, I think she won’t mind the twist. (I’ll save you the trouble, yes, the prompter was me – and no, I don’t usually make a habit of taking – and then changing – my own prompts, but I was the only one to prompt LFDH this round! *sadface* )  
> For some reason I sat down to write about surprises and this got jumbled up with an old idea I got from another prompt from severina2001: John to Matt: “Will you let me?” So, written for smallfandomfest, but I hope Sev likes it too. :)

 

Morphine may have been involved when McClane offered him a place to stay until he got – quite literally – back on his feet after the hospital, but as he didn’t have a whole lot of competing offers at the time, Matt took him up on it anyway.  
  
The thing about rooming in with McClane is, he seems like a pretty simple guy to figure out. He likes his football, classic cars and ‘classic’ rock. Tits. Budweiser. And then as soon as you’re sure you’ve got it down, he knocks you on your ass with something random.  
  
There’s so much about McClane that Matt just plain didn’t expect. McClane has a cat. That was a surprise. Her name is Minnie.  
  
 _Because she’s a moocher_ , says John.  
  
Whatever that’s supposed to mean.  
  
McClane found Minnie behind a dumpster four years ago, a couple pounds scrawnier and covered in blood. She’s filled out some since he took her in - even if she does give off an anti-social type of vibe and still walks with a limp.  
  
 _Kind of like you, kid_ , says John.  
  
Ha freakin’ ha.  
  
There’s still a chunk missing from Minnie’s left ear, and she doesn’t have much use for Matt, which is okay because Matt’s sort of allergic and she kind of bugs his asthma sometimes.  
  
Old Min doesn’t seem to have much use for anybody, really, but she lets John scratch under her chin, when they’re sitting watching the game. And she jumps her crippled ass up on the counter to lick the butter from the toast John shares with her every morning.  
  
McClane doesn’t eat crusts. He’s actually a really picky eater.  
  
Surprise number two.

~~

  


_It’s_ my _place, and I’ll smoke inside it if I damn well want to_ , says John.  
  
But since the first day Matt couldn’t hold back a cough, he’s been doing it with the window open.  
  
Matt figures it should get less surprising with time, but every damn morning, he still finds himself sticking his head in the fridge, even though he doesn’t need any more milk in his Frankenberry, just to hide his giant, ridiculous grin when he hears John cursing and wrestling with the ancient wooden window frame.

  


~~

  


The surprises dwindle and get smaller as the weeks go by, but the effect never seems to quite wear off completely. He’s not even sure how he figured this one out, but McClane is actually more or less deaf in one ear.  
  
Matt doesn’t know if it’s noise damage from an explosion, or all that gunfire, or just plain age-damage. He’s not even sure McClane knows. So he doesn’t ask. He just makes a habit out of sitting to his right, whenever McClane is actually home at a decent enough hour to pass for dinner time, and they settle into the couch to abuse Matt’s digestive system with too-greasy takeout, and subject his slowly dying brain cells to either the nightly news or what McClane calls ‘real movies’ – the black and white kind Matt’s sure are older even than McClane.  
  
And Matt pretends not to notice when those nights start coming a little less few and far between, and they actually have to start keeping groceries in the fridge.  
  
Of course McClane calls him on it when he comes across the massive box of ginger snap cookies, unloading Matt’s bags from the supermarket. Matt sticks his head in the fridge – simply putting away a bag of carrots and not at all hiding like a huge coward – and explains it’s a hell of a lot healthier to hold one of those in your hand than a can of heart-palpitation inducing Red Bull…or one of McClane’s Marlboros.  
  
 _Because I know you’ve been trying to cut down_ , Matt doesn’t say.  
  
But he could swear when he finally emerges from the refrigerator that for a split second he catches McClane sporting something quietly and suspiciously like a _smile_.  
  
John doesn’t have the market completely cornered on the element of surprise.

  


~~

  


It’s considerably less surprising that McClane is a territorial control-fiend, but the fact that neat-freak might go along with the package had kind of escaped him. Until the day Matt made the mistake of tossing a wet towel toward the hamper, missing, and leaving it there. On the floor.  
  
It’s not on the floor now. It’s on his fucking bed. And now his bed is wet.  
  
Surprise.

  


~~

  


_The hell you doin’?_ says John.  
  
 _The hell you think?_ Matt doesn’t say, when he crawls into McClane’s bed later that night. He just explains how he believes it’s known as ‘upping the ante’ – and that it usually escalates to some really stupid places.  
  
He doesn’t move when John reaches out and curls a strong palm around the pulse beating recklessly in his wrist. It’s dark, so there’s no point in nodding, or shutting his eyes.  
  
Matt flattens the hand under John’s grip into the mattress in assent.  
  
And when he hears the slow change in John’s breathing, and John’s mouth finds his trapped fingers in the dark; when skin finally comes against skin and it feels hot enough to actually burn… Matt is hardly surprised at all.

  


~~

  


John McClane likes to bottom. Surprise number 214.  
  
Just when Matt was sure he was getting the hang of this.

  


~~

  


_The hell you doing?_ is the last thing he would consider saying, the night Matt is brushing his teeth and two big hands are suddenly gripping the sides of the sink, surrounding and boxing him in.  
  
He’s been working the better part of a week on his last job and is just coming out of the coding coma, so he doesn’t know what time it is, or where the hell McClane has been, but he knows better than to ask. In the mirror, McClane’s face over his shoulder is a study in impassiveness, but the grip on either side of him is whitening the knuckles, and there’s a smudge of something on his cuff that could possibly be blood.  
  
Matt still says nothing, continues brushing and simply leans backward into the not-embrace. Because they don’t do that. They don’t kiss on the mouth, and they definitely don’t cuddle. They fuck. They fuck a lot. But always with Matt taking the lead, and never in John’s bed. Not since that first night.  
  
Matt watches John’s eyes close, and his chin drop slightly, as he takes Matt’s weight against his chest.  
  
One of the big, square hands moves to his hip, tugging the still shower-damp towel wrapped around his waist until it ends up pooled around his ankles on the floor. John moves closer, and Matt can feel now the hard, urgent line of pressure against his ass through the fabric of John’s clothes.  
  
Matt stays there, meeting the quiet blaze of McClane’s reflected gaze and just brushing and brushing his damn teeth until his gums could bleed from the tension alone.  
  
 _Will you let me?_ says John.  
  
Matt inwardly resolves not to do anything like _whoop_ , or pump his fist, or break out into any sort of touch-down dance. He bends forward, to spit and rinse, and not-so-subtly press the bare skin of his backside further into McClane’s groin. John takes the opportunity to slide one hand up the length of Matt’s spine, and Matt doesn’t bother to hide the shudder that follows it.  
  
Apparently that isn’t enough of an answer for McClane though, because he leans forward over top of him, tweaks an earlobe with his thumb, and repeats himself in a low rumble.  
  
Matt just nods, emphatic and stupid, and maybe a little breathless just from this - from one callous-skinned hand at his nape, and John McClane solid and hard and fully clothed behind him.  
  
At first Matt thinks John is going to just take him like this, let him watch their faces in the mirror as he fucks him. But no sooner than he has Matt’s silent permission, John is pulling him forcefully back against his chest, to spin them around in the tiny room, and then John has him up against the opposite wall. Briefly, Matt smells the warm taint of liquor on his breath, and wherever McClane has been tonight, he thinks he just might approve.  
  
There’s no time to say anything smartassed about it though, because McClane is pushing his hands up over his head, pinning him there, owning him just as plainly as the bruises Matt can feel John’s mouth sucking into the pale skin down by his clavicle, the soft spot under the hinge of his jaw.  
  
It’s rushed, but he’s been waiting for it like this for so long, and Matt loses himself in the harsh, desperate breath on his neck, and the hands everywhere – exploring, moving over his skin like they can’t ever touch him enough.  
  
This, here, finally, is the John McClane he’d known from that fiasco of a Fourth of July. This was the John he’d always been expecting all along, and somehow the bastard still managed to make it a surprise.

  


~~

  


They’re still there, half collapsed against the wall and breathing like they need to re-learn how, when a hand comes down over the back of his head. It’s half restraining, half stroking, and the juxtaposition of control and care, even now, makes him shiver.  
  
John tells him then; where he’s been. The story of his latest case scratches its way out in a low, toneless murmur somewhere from just behind Matt’s ear.  
  
 _Kid, just about Matt’s age, kinda small and scrawny, with hair just like this. Not black, but soft, like a little kid’s, and way too long for a grown man. Blond maybe, but there was so much blood. Too much to see what his face looked like before. And they got it everywhere; sprayed it, smeared it like finger paint, like they were playing with it. Like they did it for fun.  
All over the walls of the kid’s tiny, shitty apartment. The lonely, dingy kind of place Matt used to have._  
  
The kind of place he’s looking for now.  
  
When Matt goes to turn his head and look him in the eye, McClane stops him with the flat of his skull. The rough scratch of stubble and a dull shock of bone on bone are hard enough to send an ache through his jaw.  
  
 _Don’t move_ , says John.  
  
It takes the warm puff of wry laughter against the side of his neck, when he obediently and instantly freezes in John’s arms, for Matt to realize what he meant.  
  
And he doesn’t need to think about it any harder than that.  
  
 _I won’t move out_ , Matt doesn’t say.  
  
 _I won’t be bludgeoned to death in a random home invasion, or taken hostage or shot in the kneecap,_ he doesn’t say. _I’m not going to take any more sketchy jobs or start any Fire Sales.  
  
I’m not leaving you_ , he definitely doesn’t say.  
  
But when Matt pulls his wrists free where they’re pinned against the tile, John lets him loose. When he turns around so he can push their mouths together, it takes a second maybe, but John’s kiss is as desperate and bruising and _awesome_ as Matt always imagined. There’s one hand at his nape and the other at his hip, pulling them close enough together to bend his spine backward and tip him off balance enough that he has no choice but to grab McClane and hold on.  
  
And the way John looks at him when they break apart, like a condemned man reprieved, tells Matt he doesn’t need to say any of that at all.  
  
 _Hey, pick up that towel before you come to bed_ , says John.

  


~~

  


It turns out good old Minnie has been holding out on him too. It would seem that she’s actually quite the closet snuggler, and bedtime in John’s room is the only place in the house _either_ of them will make a habit of letting that particular freak flag fly – every night like clockwork. But for now, Matt stifles a sneeze, and gently shoos her off the bed to the floor.  
  
He still has a few surprises of his own left to show McClane, and he’d rather they didn’t have an audience while he does it.

~END~

  


 


End file.
